North Texas club owners are becoming increasingly exasperated with Gov. Greg Abbott over his June executive order that closed the state’s stand-alone bars. Now, they’re ramping up calls to reopen or to receive some form of financial assistance. Thursday, Dot’s Hop House & Cocktail Courtyard in Deep Ellum posted a…
Thursday, Dallas teachers caravanned to a school board meeting to demand that in-person classes be delayed until January 2021. Members of a local teachers union and their supporters held the demonstration to urge Dallas ISD to keep schools closed. Rena Honea, president of Dallas’ Alliance/AFT union, said that it isn’t…
Returning to school is never fun, but the coronavirus pandemic has made it exponentially more surreal. Last week, the Texas Education Agency released guidance stating that masks must be worn in the classroom. It also said that face shields can be used in certain educational contexts. But Dr. Erin Carlson,…
Texas Democrats are gearing up to lick a ton of envelopes. Monday, the Texas Democratic Party announced it would mail more than 815,000 absentee ballot applications in August to eligible voters, such as seniors and people with disabilities. The move is part of its vote-by-mail program, which aims to send…
Nearly five months have passed since the coronavirus pandemic first hit North Texas and everything is still topsy-turvy. Trying to keep up with the latest developments can give a person whiplash. Here’s Dallas County in a nutshell today: The daily coronavirus case rate is decreasing. Monday, Dallas County Health and…
U.S Rep. Colin Allred said it’s clear now that Texas reopened too soon and with too few precautions. “Though you can’t predict a pandemic, it didn’t have to be this way,” he said. Allred, Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins and representatives from Richardson Independent School District and UT Southwestern Medical…
To the chagrin of fans yearning for the best ol’ days, Nolan Ryan won’t regularly be at the Texas Rangers’ new home. But thanks to his bronze statue, the Hall-of-Fame, flesh-and-blood “Big Tex” will stand watch outside Globe Life Field. Courtesy of long-time public address announcer Chuck Morgan, Ryan’s 10-gallon…
Water balloons, rockets, snow cones and slime get top billing in most kids’ pantheon of summer vacation favorites. Luckily for children in Dallas’ high-poverty Frazier neighborhood, they now get to experience mainstays like those every Wednesday. After the pandemic hit, multiple Dallas nonprofits teamed to throw Pop Up Camp, a…
The Dallas County Sheriff’s Department has fumbled a few times with its COVID-19 protocols. First, employees were told not to wear masks because that would frighten the inmates. Then, the department started issuing its employees one disposable mask per week and told them to sanitize them with alcohol or Lysol…
Denton mom Tina Bennett likened last spring’s semester to a skirmish. After the coronavirus pandemic forced people into isolation, she would work her IT job from home while her two sons did their best to adjust to virtual learning. Her younger son, Koda, had an especially tough time. “It became…
Earlier this year, 200 people packed into Old Parkland to hear city leaders talk about the future of Dallas Area Rapid Transit. DART had some pretty big projects coming up, like the overhaul of its bus system and the D-2 downtown subway, and they were working toward major public transit…
The Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission slapped 18 club owners with suspensions after they participated in Freedom Fest, Saturday’s statewide bar protest that aimed to challenge the governor’s latest pandemic shutdown order. Organizer Chris Polone, who owns The Rail Club Live in Fort Worth, said he’s also under the gun. This week,…
Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins says numerous complaints have been made about businesses where masks, among other things, cannot be worn all the time. Some of these businesses are bars in every sense of the word, but they’re open and are at risk of spreading the coronavirus. Jenkins called these…
Annemarie Aldrich is hunting for answers. At the coronavirus pandemic’s outset, her store, Denton’s Rose Costumes, began sewing masks for inmates and staff at the Denton County Jail. Dubbing the effort “Project Mask Makers,” Aldrich said volunteers delivered thousands of handmade cloth masks that were tailored to jail officials’ specifications. Then,…
East Texas U.S. Rep. Louie Gohmert, who has shunned mask-wearing during the pandemic because he’s Louie Gohmert, has tested positive for the coronavirus. Gohmert was due to travel back to Texas on a campaign trip with President Donald Trump on Wednesday, but a pre-screening test for that trip came back…
Since the pandemic began, health experts have heralded future coronavirus vaccines as potential godsends. But skepticism surrounding immunization may prevent some from embracing them. No matter how foolproof a vaccine is, it won’t properly work if people don’t get it, said Dr. Eric Bing, professor of global health at Southern…
There weren’t any hiccups in Freedom Fest, Saturday’s statewide bar protest, according to its organizer. More than 300 bars said they would be joining the demonstration by hosting benefits that day in defiance of an order from Gov. Greg Abbott closing bars on account of the pandemic. Organizer Chris Polone,…
Dallas students are starting school three weeks later than previously expected. Thursday, Dallas ISD trustees voted unanimously to begin the school year on Sept. 8 instead of Aug. 17. The move comes after Dallas County Health and Human Services issued an order that prevents private and public schools from holding…
Quiet: The stands. Quieter: The bats. After $1.2 billion in construction, a four-month delay courtesy of COVID-19 and the hype of Major League Baseball’s 60-game sprint of a schedule, Texas Rangers baseball was back in Arlington over the weekend. But after christening new Globe Life Field with masks, social distancing,…
Soon, single mother Kimberly Brock will likely be evicted from her Denton home. A federal law that had shielded her from displacement expired on Saturday. That same day, Brock, who has a 5-month-old daughter named Emery, said she received an eviction notice. She hasn’t been able to afford her full…
Black mold, raw sewage and neglected trash piles are plaguing inmates stuck in one of Denton County Jail’s so-called “quarantine pods,” according to a local activist and scholar. Coronavirus-infected inmates are also allegedly deprived of functioning masks; they often must reuse the ones they do have, some of which are filled…
Saturday, more than 300 bars across the state say they will participate in Freedom Fest, an event its organizer has dubbed “the biggest bar protest in Texas history.” Chris Polone, the owner of Fort Worth’s The Rail Club Live, arranged the festival to challenge an executive order that forced the…
